Nah, not really. I fixed some stuff in the backend, behind the curtain, leading to some cool shit, like being able to throw photos up easier. Of course, fixing a little thing, meant looking at the thing next to it and declaring it shit. Looking some more, blah fucking blah, until my eyes are crossed, my back is sore, my relationship has gone to shit, a victim of my obsession, and if I had a dog, it would go unwalked.

But, it’s getting closer to something.

For now, I’ve slipped on one of my self-imposed website rules, but that will likely change. This layout of the columns and the colors are more somebody else’s idea than my own design. The rule being that everything here is the product of dee-rob’s brain.

The banner is all mine. And the content, of course.

Other than that, check out the shows that I got off my ass (and just stayed on my ass for a couple) to get on. Yup, live and in person and likely with just boring, babbling unamusing shit about web sites. Really not funny. Yay me.

There might be a few more changes. Or not. I’ll miss this picture, mostly for the largest cross erected in the Western Hemisphere, like seeing Jesus pass me by on the road.

[image:3431:l]

[newline]

Other banner contenders:

[image:3429:l]

[image:3430:l]

Obviously, I’ve kind of been in a picture taking frame of mind. Yesterday, whilst in San Francisco (as M. trained for the marathon running around the city, and I ambled lazily), I tried getting something new for the banner above. But, it was really gray and overcast, and I couldn’t get anything with the kind of color I wanted.

This had color: [image:3377:l:t=][newline]

This had some lines I liked: [image:3413:l:t=][newline]

In this I got the old blue I could find in the sky: [image:3411:l:t=][newline]

I kind of like this, not sure: [image:3418:l:t=][newline]

And, then there are the sea lions fighting:[image:3397:l:t=][image:3404:l:t=][image:3403:l:t=]

I’ve finally gotten off my comedy ass and booked a couple of things. One of them isn’t confirmed, but a girl can hope.

Since I don’t want to have the old website of shame on at work, and I keep falling asleep when I get home (allergies and M.’s cable news channel jones combined, methinks), I’m trying to work out some way to better use Google (need I link?) and/or myspace (ditto?). To that end, I’m working on using Google Calendar in my life.

Theoretically, if you were to click right here, you’d get to a calendar for “deedashrob.com” (‘cuz they wouldn’t let me use an actual dash) and the comedy schedule of our own dee-rob. I say theoretically, because it wasn’t working a second ago, and the button over there on the right wasn’t either. Fuck me.

I also just realized that on a Windows XP box with Internet Explorer this page looks seriously like crap. I should keep up better with the worst of the browsers for when the website spontaneously shits the bed.

Fucking code.

Tonight, though, the debate is on. M. wants “The Omen” (not even worth linking), because he loves, loves, loves the horror designed with highschool boys looking to cop a feel in mind. I was thinking I should show my lazy ass face (wait, I don’t think I have an ass-face. I have a lazy ass, and I need to show my face) I should do something anyway comedy club related.

Given it’s Friday, and I’m in a typically post-work week state of ennui, he’ll probably win. It will be a blow against feminists everywhere. But, in a world with Ann Fucking Coulter slagging off on widows, women are kind of down for the count anyway.

Nothing like a low-turnout primary to get me feeling patriotic. As I dropped off my ballot and walked from the polling place, a guy asked me about the crowds. I had to smile and laugh, crowd size was definitely not an issue.

It’s been a while since I’ve voted for all sorts of jobs and whatnot of which I had never heard. Braintree will never be beat for having regular elections (with competitors) for tree surgeon. Least they did when I started voting. Tree surgeon.

California has something called a State Board of Equalization. I don’t know what the fuck that means let alone what would qualify you. But, good old Betty Yee was running unopposed in my district, and she’s been doing the job anyway. So, good on you, Betty.

Weirdest thing to this old Cantabridgian voting in a local election was not just the length of the ballot. (Cambridge’s proportional voting scheme tends to keep things short, I think.) But, the variety of names. You are hard pressed to find so many Asian and Latino names on any old Massachusetts ballot. And in San Jose, there aren’t so many Tobins or Duffys or Fitzies or O’Anythings. A couple of people I voted for had the best, I’m a hard-working immigrant who came here with no shoes, an accent and an inability to read the language, story.

Speaking of that last sentence (which I wasn’t, I was just writing it, but pretend this is a segue), anyway, I feel a tad guilty about voting for shit of which I knew less than nothing. But, I never knew jack about the Braintree tree surgeon either.

California is fucking awesome. Awesome. I’m reading through the bios and whatnot of the mayoral candidates for the City of San Jose. I’m learning to love this the Golden State and its political collection of nutjobs.

(On a wacky sidenote, I get to vote for Jerry Brown for something if I feel like it.)

Anyway, while perusing the League of Women Voters’ Smart Voter info site for my new city and my ‘hood, I came across this essay, “A candid assesment of the Mayor’s race, its ethics and conduct,” by mayoral candidate Timothy K. Fitzgerald. It’s so good, I quote it in its entirety.

About the Race

By Timothy K. Fitzgerald

Candidate for Mayor; City of San Jose

This information is provided by the candidate

A candid assesment of the Mayor’s race, its ethics and conduct.

Let me lay this on you… I have recently been detained at Valley Medical Pshyic Ward after an illegal detention of 10 days. I am, as a matter of record disabled and subject to medical oversight for the last 25 years. It is benign and incidental, under normal life circumstances. Appartently these are not normal times, and I am not the average guy on the street… I committed no crime, I came seeking help. I was rebuffed by the Psychiarist charged with giving Counsel to the Public in need. I was passed on to a Social Worker who refused to accomodate meand had armed City police escort me into detention with no charges profered – not even a 51/50. “THESE ARE TIMES THAT TRY MEAN’S SOULS. WHEN THE SUMMER SOLDIER AND SUNSHINE PATRIOT SHRINK FROM THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUINTRY.” So said Thomas Paine at the depths of the Revolutin while Washington awaited his opportunity at Valley Forge…NO LESS A CRISIS IS AT OUR DOORSTEP THIS VERY DAY. “Tyranny like hell…” Went on Mr. Paine, And like they say in BOard and Care facilities through out this fine City, “I’ve already done my time in Hell.” (GOd save the Wjueen.) In 1970, when this nation faced certain crisis overseas, and terror at home, WHEN FOUR STUDENTS WERE GUNNED DOWN ON THEIR SANCTUARY, at Kent State, Ohio; Police Thugs dressed as ‘plain clothsmen’ blocked off nearby Fifth Street on both ends, and under orders of Polioe Chief Ray Blackmore, ruthlessly beat 500 marching students for singing “All we are asking, is give Peace a Chance..” Praise the Lord. We lost the movement in the 1960’s, because we lost our LEADERSHIP !! Because the FBI or the CIA or whoever gunned down Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, jr, Bobby Kennedy, and the Black Panthers on the West Side of Chicago. RISE UP AMERICA !!Take the God given Right of Self-Governance held in our covenant with God in the Declaration of Independence and OVER THROW THIS TYRANNY !! I cry out like a voice crying in the wilderness – like John The Babtist, or Samson, in times of turbulance. HERE MY PLEA !! While I was detained these last ten days, I was withouit funds, I had to beg to place so much as aphone call. The Establishment Bureacrats bent on swinging the elction to my opponents mocked and teased me in locked facilities, Saying “THis is Victory !! Look at the Candiate for Mayor… I am the brightest person in the City.” (They screamed one night in a loud voice that couild be heard across the faicility. This is the most unethical election dressed in the finery of a white coat I( have ever seen in the City in all my 60 years – and I’ve watched some pretty ugly contests… By what measure, by what logic, does raising the most finances for campaigns become the leading candiatee in the polls?? Perhaps like me, the candidate with the least funds would, in the end, make the most competent Mayor…Does fund raising measure the competance to hold office?? By what right does the Mercury News arbitarily cut off the Main Candidates they cover at ‘five’ – instead of six or seven – or the full ten scheduled to appear on the ballot in June?? Friends, just how long has the Press in this county dictated the reasoning of our Conscience?? If this country is to be saved from its path toward certain totalitarianism in Washington, YOU, the citizens before me…the Men and Women of San Jose, must RISE UP, stnad for your sacrid values and beliefs, Organize telephone trees, Open House Coffees, and corner conversations; and as Bobbie Seale said in the dark days of the 60’s “Seize the Time” as God has given you the time – So help you GOD> THIS TIS TYRANNY !! OUr fundamental RIGHTS of Freedom of Speach and Assembly, our time honored practice of a Petition of Greivances, has been appended, and we are defrauded of our right to self governemt. Nothing less is at stake in this election. ARE WE A FREE PEOPLE, OR HAVE WE BECOME OPPRESSED AND LACKIES OF THE OPPRESSOR.
tim K Fitzgerald

Awhile back I dropped M. off at the airport, so he could fly, fly away to Manhattan. Then, this afternoon, the boss jumped on a foreign land bound jet. The result, for a brief flicker on the cosmic dial, I am without responsibility. No one is reliant upon me.

Is it freedom or just a little doldrum?

For me, it all boils down to not caring what’s for dinner. No commitment, no implied commitment, no conversation. I bought Triscuits, and I bought a mango, and I bought one of the conceivably most conveniency of convenience snacking:

Yup, I’m so fucking lazy and living so large, I don’t even need to slice my own cheese.

Soon, I’m going to fill out my absentee ballot to drop off at the polls tomorrow. (Here in the wacky Left Coast, you can get yourself hooked up absentee style (and in fact the chick at the voter registration booth last year recommended it), and then hand it in like a book report into the little voting machine.

Cheese, crackers, fruit, and politics. This is my America. This is my freedom.

I added more pics to the photo album I started of nature around Stanford U.’s “Dish.”

My faves could be these:

This one is pretty natural, too.

I might be ambivalent about this one: